Afghan Ex-Official Accused Of ISIS Support Had Held Senior Intelligence Post, Sources Say

An Afghan national arrested in Virginia for allegedly aiding ISIS-K once occupied a top intelligence role in his former country, the New York Post reported Saturday night.

Jaan Shah Safi was taken into custody in Waynesboro, Virginia, after the Department of Homeland Security labeled him an “illegal alien terrorist.” DHS said on December 3 that he had supported ISIS-K and supplied weapons to his father, a militia commander in Afghanistan.

What DHS did not make public is that Safi, 48, had served as deputy director of the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan equivalent of the CIA, in Nangarhar Province.

He arrived in the United States under the Biden Administration’s Operation Allies Welcome.

“He’s not just a soldier or just a commander. He was a very senior guy,” Haibatullah Alizai, who was chief of staff of the Afghan Army in the final days before Kabul fell, told The Post. Alizai added that Safi had once been “the most key intelligence guy in Kunar Province,” and said Afghan expats were stunned by the allegations. “This family has always been a counterterrorism family. They are famous for that.”

The Trump Administration revealed Safi’s arrest just after authorities charged Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the alleged National Guard shooter, with first-degree murder in the killing of 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom in Washington, DC. Lakanwal has pleaded not guilty.

“This terrorist was arrested miles from our nation’s capital where our brave National Guard heroes, Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe, were shot just days ago by another unvetted Afghan terrorist brought into our country,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement.

Another Afghan national, Mohammad Dawood Alokozay, was also arrested in Texas on federal charges accusing him of threatening to blow up men in a group chat on TikTok and other platforms.

DHS pointed to all three cases, saying this latest arrest “marks the third arrest of an Afghan national terrorist released into the country by the Biden administration in less than a week.”

Rahmatullah Nabil, the former head of Afghanistan’s security directorate, questioned the accusations on X, arguing that Safi — who DHS said had lost his Temporary Protected Status — should be acknowledged for “his work in counter-terrorism, identifying extremist networks, and handling intelligence sources.”

A pro-Taliban outlet later claimed Safi was a “pawn” and an oppressor whose family had supported ISIS.